NAPERVILLE, October 6 — IKEA is closing its Bolingbrook, Illinois store and building a smaller-format location in Naperville’s Block 59 development, with the Bolingbrook site remaining open until late 2027 and the new store expected to open the same year.
The Bolingbrook store spans 317,000 square feet across two stories and will stay open until late 2027, the same year the new Naperville location is slated to open. The new Naperville store will be situated just eight miles from the Bolingbrook site on Boughton Road, near Interstate 355, and will be located off Route 59, though the exact site was not disclosed by IKEA officials.
Designed as a compact, curated shopping experience, the Naperville location marks a departure from IKEA’s traditional large-format stores and aims to better serve evolving customer needs in the Bolingbrook-Naperville corridor. Sam Gravina, Chicago metro market manager for IKEA, said the move positions the retailer closer to growing population centers while maintaining accessibility for existing Bolingbrook customers.
He emphasized the new store will maximize every square foot, offering ‘local living’ solutions tailored to the surrounding communities’ lifestyles and spaces, while preserving the inspiration and functionality of the IKEA brand. Despite its smaller size, the Naperville store will include a Swedish Deli and Swedish Food Market, continuing to sell IKEA’s iconic meatballs. The new location is intended to complement IKEA’s existing flagship store in Schaumburg, which covers 450,000 square feet and lies approximately 30 minutes from Naperville.
IKEA has been rolling out similar small-format stores nationwide, including a 66,000-square-foot location in Gurnee, Illinois, which received $2 million in village incentives and is projected to generate $2.9 million in sales tax over six years, netting the village approximately $900,000. Outside Illinois, IKEA has opened small-format stores in Culver City, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, though it recently announced the closure of a small-format store in San Marcos, Texas, after just one year of operation, set to close on November 1.
Additionally, three ‘plan and order with pickup’ IKEA stores in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., were reported earlier this week to be slated for closure. Naperville Mayor Scott Wehrli noted at a June city council meeting that the city’s furniture and electronics sales lagged behind other sectors, citing $257 million in such sales last year—a 30.3% increase from 2024—placing Naperville behind Glenview ($695 million) and Schaumburg ($286 million) according to a report by Melaniphy & Associates.
Wehrli added that Naperville leads in other retail categories including grocery, restaurant and bar, home improvement, automobile dealer, and gasoline sales. At the same June council meeting, Brixmor Property Group requested and received approval for an additional $1.85 million in tax incentives to attract a home goods/furniture retailer to its Block 59 Business District, an extension of the incentives package supporting the IKEA development. The bottom line: IKEA is shifting to smaller, localized formats in the Chicago suburbs, balancing brand presence with evolving retail dynamics and municipal incentive strategies.
Investors will note the figure that matters: the company’s continued investment in compact stores reflects a broader trend of adapting to urban density and changing consumer behavior, even as some test markets, like San Marcos, Texas, prove short-lived. What to watch next: how the Naperville location performs against IKEA’s Gurnee model and whether the Block 59 incentives yield the anticipated retail anchor for Naperville’s commercial district.
